While the cloud model offers convenience and reduces cost, there are always lingering concerns about the security and confidentiality of data stored at the cloud storage service. Such concerns are especially critical when dealing with enterprise data that needs to be shared with other authorized users, both internal colleagues and external partners.
Cloud storage providers, such as Box and Dropbox, publish APIs for 3rd party companies to use for developing custom products that offer additional file related services, built upon the storage capability of the cloud provider. When it comes to file sharing, the available APIs vary between storage providers and do not always include all the necessary APIs for an end-to-end solution. Products exist to enable the encryption of data but no client-managed encryption solution is known to offer flexible use of data storage, and dynamic access control without re-encrypting the stored data. Existing products also do not support file sharing between several devices and/or between several users.
Further alternative and advantageous solutions would, accordingly, be desirable in the art.